The Trophy Taker (6 page)

‘Is Lucy working here tonight?’ Mann asked Mamasan Rose when he’d finished interviewing the foreign girls. Mamasan Rose smiled curiously at Mann, said she was, and left to fetch her.

As soon as she entered Mann recognised her as the woman from the lift with the leather trousers. Now she was wearing a lilac-coloured figure-hugging evening dress that she didn’t quite have the figure for, and an extra coating of lip-gloss. He waited while she sat and readied herself.

‘Hello again, Inspector.’ She smiled sweetly, a very practised smile, and adjusted her dress to show a flirtatious amount of leg.

Surprising, thought Mann. She was nothing special to look at; her sickly sweet smile was set into an over-rouged face. But then she didn’t
have
to be beautiful. According to James Dudley-Smythe she was extremely talented in other ways.

She giggled, batting her eyelashes and feigning shyness under his scrutiny.

‘Are you the only Lucy working here?’

‘Yes, just me, Inspector. There’s only one Lucy.’

‘Well, it must be you I want then.’

Lucy raised an inquisitive eyebrow and pursed her lips into a ‘butter wouldn’t melt’ smile.

‘I have heard that you provide certain services for men who like something
special
.’

Lucy’s face was a picture of surprise but her eyes betrayed her. Mann could see that she was as sharp and as calculating as they come – but most of all she was a survivor. She had seen right into the depths of men’s souls. It may not have been a pretty sight, but boy was it lucrative.

‘I mean that you cater to
certain
tastes. Men who like to feel pain, feel it
and
inflict it.’

Lucy held his gaze, kept the smile, and inclined her head in a small movement.

‘Tell me, Lucy, have you had any problems with a particular client? Anybody go too far? Anyone scare you? Hurt you more than you wanted or were paid for?’

Lucy kept the smile, lowered her eyes and shook her head slowly.

‘No, I don’t think so. It’s just fun – you know?’

She looked up from beneath her lashes with a hint of a proposition, as if maybe he
did
know and it was always worth her while testing the water.

Mann had the distinct impression she was imagining him with a whip in his hand and his pants around his ankles.

‘What about the foreign girls here? Are you friendly with them?’

‘
Quite
friendly. I rent some of them a room in my apartment, Inspector,’ she said, moving to sit slightly to one side; her best side.

‘Your apartment?’

‘Yes, I live with my sister in Wanchai. We have a spare room which we let to foreign girls from the club. They pay more.’

‘Any of the foreign girls talk to you about a bad experience they might have had?’

Lucy thought for a few seconds and then swung her head slowly from side to side while keeping her eyes pinned on Mann – still holding that sweet, simpering smile, which was beginning to grate on him.

‘Any of the foreign girls gone missing that you know of?’

She gave an exasperated shrug. ‘They’re always dis appearing, just leaving all their things and moving on,’ she said. ‘An American girl, Roxanne, all her belongings are at my flat at the moment. Such a nuisance.’

‘Is it unusual for girls just to leave all their stuff and disappear?’

Lucy rolled her eyes. ‘She’s not the first. Guess it’s just the way they are …
Gweilos
, they come and go. Do whatever they like, whenever they like. It’s just the way they are.’

Mann let his eyes fasten hard on Lucy for a few seconds longer than she was comfortable with. He could tell she was curious about him. He had no problem with being mixed race, but others did. They didn’t know whether to speak to him in English or Cantonese.

Mann liked feeding their insecurities. He belonged wherever he wanted to belong. Everywhere and nowhere. If Lucy was seriously trying to flirt with him she was wasting her time and his.

‘Can you give me a description of Roxanne?’ He poised, pen in hand.

Lucy’s attitude changed. She knew she wasn’t going to get anywhere with him. She had to accept defeat, at least for now. She covered up her leg, and shifted uncomfortably in her seat as if she were going numb from sitting so long.

‘Curly blonde hair, bit fat, nice hands – liked to do her nails, manicures, you know?’ She twirled her bright red nails in the air as she spoke and glanced towards the door.

‘You say there have been other girls?’ He looked up from his notes.

‘Five or six maybe, over the years.’ She straightened her dress in preparation for the off.

‘You have no idea where they went?’

She shook her head.

‘I will need you to give me details about these girls, physical descriptions, that kind of thing.’

‘Of course, Inspector.’ Lucy nodded sweetly, batting her eyelashes, but her smile had changed. ‘Always happy to help the police. If that is all …’ She slid off the chair, bowed, and left.

After she had gone, Mann was left with the distinct impression that Lucy was as mercenary as they came – a good Hong Kong girl if ever he met one. But, he couldn’t blame her. In fact, he even kind of admired her. Hong Kong wasn’t the most caring mother to her daughters. It wasn’t so long ago that infant girls were left to die on the roadside. Now there was every type of brothel – floating, high-rise or underground – to keep a girl off the streets.

He’d done all he could. It was time to move on. He thanked the mamasans, said he would be back soon, and made his way out of the club, past the ‘lucky’ fish and the Taiwanese bouncers.

He was just about to step into the elevator when two men stepped out. One was a prominent elderly Chinese politician, Sun Yat-sen. Mann recognised him from some recent publicity shots. He was in Hong Kong promoting trade alliances – creaming off a few backhanders. The other man was the same age as Mann. He was shorter by six inches but made the most of his slight frame with expensive suits and well-tailored jackets. He carried himself with authority. His hair was very neatly cropped, smoothly side parted. His face was narrow, angular with a sallow complexion. His eyes were dark-rimmed and hooded and larger than his triangular face could cope with.

Chan and Mann eyeballed each other for several seconds before exchanging places in the lift. They had not always been enemies. They had been friends once, brothers almost. Mann had even saved Chan’s life when they were at school together in England on a school trip to the Lake District. Chan had wandered too far out in the water and a hidden shelf took him unawares. He couldn’t swim, and Mann had saved him. From that day on they had been best friends, shared their hopes and dreams and supported one another through the years of a sometimes-lonely exile at boarding school in England. In the last year of school the boys had come back to spend their summer vacation in Hong Kong, as usual. They had spent the evening together and parted company at Mann’s house. When Mann went inside he found his father held captive by triads and being tortured and beaten. Mann was seized, held, and made to watch his father’s execution. The boys had vowed to be united forever in vengeance against them. But only one of the boys had kept that vow. The other had joined forces with the enemy.

Mann stood rigid now. His tall, muscular frame tensed as his body willed him to take action against the man he hated. But Mann knew that hurting Chan would only give him momentary satisfaction. Okay, maybe it would last for an hour or two. But it wouldn’t destroy Chan in the long run, and Mann
definitely
wanted to do that. Because Chan hadn’t just joined forces with the enemy. He had become the enemy. Mann watched them walk away and saw Chan glance back.

Keep looking behind you, Chan, because I’m going to
be there
.

After her interview with Mann, Lucy went back to the Dressing Room to wait for her number to be called. The ‘home from home’ for the girls was a large rectangular space about fifty-five metres long and twenty wide. It was sparsely furnished with lockers and chairs down its left-hand side and starlet-style mirrors arranged in rows down its right. In front of the mirrors were broad shelves used for eating, doing make-up, sleeping. There were stools and chairs scattered around, but never enough.

There were girls everywhere, descended flock-like to roost, at least two hundred at any one time, dressing or undressing. Their glamorous frocks were semi-draped over smooth shiny skin or poured intestine-like from lockers where they had fallen from hangers or been hastily discarded.

The noise of excited girls greeting one another, of locker doors bouncing off their hinges, was deafening, but the camaraderie was touching. Lucy threaded her way through.

‘Hey, Lucy, what’s up?’ The distinctive American tones of Candy could be heard above the racket. ‘You late?’

‘Nah … been out already …’ Lucy sassed over her shoulder as she made her way through.

Candy feigned amazement. ‘Jesus, Lucy! You’re gonna be rich!’

Lucy giggled, then screeched as she heard her number called over the tannoy:

‘
NUMBER 169,MISS LUCY … NUMBER 169,MISS
LUCY
…’

She doubled back and squirmed through the waiting girls to meet her mamasan on the other side of the velvet curtain.

‘You must be good girl now, Lucy.’ Mamasan Linda held on to Lucy’s hand and trotted ahead like a mother escorting a naughty child to receive judgement from a waiting father.

They wound their way through half-full tables, past the Filipino band singing the Police song ‘Don’t stand so close to me’
quite
earnestly, considering that a consignment of blow had arrived that day from Manila, past a man from Taipei who was on the dance floor clinging pathetically to the pencil-thin, Lycra-slippery hips of his young date while the changing light patterns on the dance floor stole his drunken feet from beneath him. And past Bernadette, who was leaping from foot to foot in a frenzy of chiffon. Her hair sat rigid on her head like deep-fried roadkill, while the rest of her body hopped madly around the dance floor. Lucy remembered going out on a double date with Bernadette. What a nightmare! She recalled Bernadette straddling a diminutive Taiwanese, his face exploding like a bullfrog on heat at every squeeze of those massive white thighs. Lucy had had to drag her off at the end of the evening with her screaming,
But I haven’t feckin’ come
yet!

Mamasan Linda stopped in her tracks and turned back to talk to Lucy. She lowered her voice.

‘He’s a good customer. He’s come back many times and asked for you. Look after him, okay? Be a clever girl, huh? Big VIP. He owns all this.’ She swept her hands in the air theatrically.

Lucy gave her a ‘teach grandma to suck eggs’ look and fell into a trot behind her again, following the red and gold cheongsam swishing hypnotically from side to side. They approached a booth that was situated to the back of the club, in the VIP section, overlooking the semicircular dance floor.

‘Here she is.’ Mamasan Linda let go of Lucy’s hand and pushed her forward. ‘Here is Lucy.’

Lucy smiled and slipped in behind the round table until her thigh made contact with her client’s. She studied him but her eyes were still adjusting to the gloom and it took time to recognise him as the man who had bought her out a couple of weeks before and a few times before that. It took time to place body with face – to transcend the gap between leaving the club and leaving the Love Motel. Then she placed him and a surge of adrenalin went through her as she remembered his peculiar tastes that had taken some time to heal.

Chan spent his evenings doing the rounds of the hostess clubs. He was son-in-law to C. K. Leung, the Dragon Head of the Wo Shing Shing triad organisation – the most powerful society in Hong Kong. It was Chan’s job to oversee some of the Wo Shing Shing’s many business concerns and, at the same time, he liked to cherry-pick any new young hostesses who had just come on the market. Chan had a bent towards pubescent girls. He liked his girls to be girls. Surprising then, that he had asked for Lucy, she wasn’t really his type – too fat and certainly, at twenty-four, too old. But tonight he had come looking for her. He had need of her quite extraordinary talents.

‘So, Lucy, how’s things?’

‘Good evening, Mr Chan. Everything is good, thank you. It’s nice to see you again.’

Lucy smiled, met his eyes, and began her usual routine. She feigned ‘coy mistress’ mixed with ‘sure bet’ in as few seconds as she could. The act was wasted. He was busy signalling to Mamasan Linda that he would be buying Lucy out and he was ready to leave.

‘Go change, quick-quick,’ she said, appearing beside the table.

Lucy stood up and left the two to negotiate.

‘See you in a minute, Mr Chan,’ she said. He didn’t answer. He was already busy with his wallet.

On the way she met Candy en route to one of the VIP suites at the back of the club. Her tall figure – broad shoulders, stiff hips and straight back – dwarfed the two Chinese hostesses with her. Her eyes widened in mock disbelief as she glanced at Lucy. Lucy grinned. Candy had no need to worry. She always did well. She lived in an expensive apartment near Tsim Sha Tsui and came to work in the evening to recruit customers for the next day instead. Moving from table to table, she never wanted to be bought out – preferring to make back-to-back appointments for the following day. She was sending the money home to an Italian boyfriend who wanted to open a deli in New York.

Chan dropped Lucy back at the club afterwards. She smiled sweetly and thanked him for his patronage. He wasn’t listening. He was anxious to be rid of her. He was always the same afterwards: curt, cold and callous. He had hurt her, but he didn’t care. He had overstepped the mark, crossed the boundaries, and ignored the signal to stop. Now he couldn’t even look at her. Not because he felt any guilt, but because she repulsed him. Easing herself out of the car, Lucy turned to wave goodbye, but he had already pulled off erratically into the stream of traffic. Lucy wouldn’t be able to work again that night.